Reasonable Gun Laws

There’s an oft repeated fallacy that “all we want it a few more ‘reasonable’ gun laws” but (insert either the NRA, evil republicans, gun-nuts), won’t be reasonable. So let's talk about "what's reasonable", and explain some of the complexities that the reasonable laws on the books already look like, to understand why some are so hesitant to ask for more. If you want to be reasonable, you first need to be informed, and get the basics right. How can you reason with an ignoramus (well meaning or not)? So the first step to reasonable gun laws, is educating the gun controllers, on what guns are, how they work, and how bad the current laws are.

What is reasonable when it comes to gun laws? I explain what it takes to be compliant with a few gun laws so that readers can decide how reasonable these laws are. Now I'm not a lawyer, and I don't play one on TV, so don't take this as legal advice. But these are just a small sampling of the 20,000: local, state and national gun control laws that every owner must know and comply with, under the legal concept of Ignorantia juris non excusat (Ignorance of the law is no excuse). The penalty for infraction is often a felony conviction, ruination and loss of gun rights by hyper-aggressive DA's who hate guns or want to get elected to higher office on the fraud that they're helping public safety. Or worse, the laws aren't enforced and teach both sides contempt for them. If any of these laws seem silly, annoying, or ineffective, you will begin to understand why gun-advocates mock and resist “reasonable gun control” and the legislators who create them.

Gun Laws

For 200 years every legal scholar and ruling on the 2A was wrong, because gun-control activists in the 1960's figured out that the 2A was not an individual right, but only meant to protect people in the militia (National Guard). So the 2A doesn't protect people's right to bear arms at all, only the militias.

The National Guard" wasn't created until 1903, and founding fathers (and Supreme Court) defined (a) militia as all able body males able to defend the country (b) that well regulated just meant "in working order" (c) "the People" always meant individual rights (not the collective) (d) they got dependency backwards: militia was dependent on the individuals, not the other way around. The lefts linguistic gymnastics shows how desperate they are to circumvent and distort the legal rights/liberties the Constitution recognized.

The 2A was passed when the people only had muskets, therefor only muskets are protected under the 2A. The founding fathers couldn't have imagined changes in armament / technology, thus it couldn’t have been intended to apply to modern pistols and rifles.

The Founding Fathers wrote about balancing power between the people and the government: when the firepower changed, it needed to change equally for both sides (personal weapons). But ignoring the flawed premise, the lack of historical understanding is gobsmacking stupid: since at the founding of the country we had 8-shot revolvers, 11-shot field artillery pieces, Jefferson had a 22 shot repeating rifle. Not to mention "burst mode" fully automatics that fired up to 20 rounds with one pull of the trigger. Anyone that makes the argument that the 2A was for muskets disqualifies themselves from rational discussion on guns and gun technology.

Gunpocolypse was a leftist fantasy of gun control laws: Bullet buttons were a way around California's no "removable magazine" laws: outlawed. No loaning of guns. Falsely reporting a lost or stolen firearm is not a high crime. Background checks for ammo purchases. Bans >10 round magazines. No Ghost guns. One gun purchase per month. Can accuse anyone and take away their gun rights.

Not one of these new laws would have helped in the last couple dozen mass shootings (or arguable any, ever). They are all imaginative ways to torture legal gun owners, under the premise that it'll help against random mass murders, but there's no evidence of that. Most of the laws were gotten around before they were enacted: like bullet buttons, just made a different mechanism. Ammo-purchase, got people to buy and store in bulk (and stock up). >10 rounds was defeated in court. Ghost guns are never used in crime, and there's zero reporting compliance. So these fascist hysterics did nothing but polarize the gun owners against the law makers.

The left's view of the world is more guns = more crime. That allowing concealed and carry for anyone but the political elite, is a way to increase the odds of shootings and crimes. And that we shouldn't trust our fellow man (especially in important places like schools, government offices) with something as dangerous as boom sticks.

Everywhere we loosened Conceal and Carry laws, crime went down. CCE's commit fewer crimes, have better records, and better records on shootings, than both the general population, or the police. They have stopped or reduced casualties in many crimes or mass shootings. If you know that more people are good, then allowing good people to be armed, would do more good than harm.

The left pretends all their ideas are reasonable. They do this by not understanding basic operation of guns, and appealing to those who do not either. So they're only reasonable to those who suffer from Dunning-Kruger (the beginner-expert problem).

A law is a reflection of the authors and advocates: if they aren't informed, then the laws they write aren't going to be reasonable. Virtually everyone that learns the facts switches sides: the vast majority of gun controllers (like the ones listed), are uninformed with no understanding of the tool, history of gun control laws, or the efficacy of what they propose -- thus what they propose isn't "reasonable".

If leftist believe gun control works and guns are the problem, then there is no such thing as gun-control: you need complete gun bans! Why would you settle for a little murder (or mass murder), when you could eliminate it all? Every year will offer politicians a new opportunity at making us incrementally safer, through less freedom. "Controlling" semi-auto rifles means you have to control semi-auto-pistols... and then revolvers, pump/lever action, then finally bolt/break action guns. If guns are the cause, then there are no safe guns in the hands of your neighbors.

If gun control works, then it would be reasonable to take them all! If it doesn't work, then virtually all gun control is unreasonable! Pick one. The worst mass murders were done with box cutters, bombs, or in countries with the strictest gun-control, so we know it doesn't work. Thus, "nobody wants to take your guns, we just want a few "reasonable controls" is a lie. Gun-controllers are lying: either to us, themselves or both. I've never met the gun-controller that would be satisfied with X, when that means their neighbors will still have guns. X is always and only the beginning to Y (violence and a police state).

We need to, "Just ban assault rifles", "they are especially dangerous", "no one should own military grade weapons", or "it's not all guns, just these killing machines" demonstrates complete ignorance about guns, assault weapons, or bans. In other words, they are saying, "the biggest mass murders were in places with strict gun control, so we need to emulate them".

Assault rifles are select fire and have been illegal since the 1930's. Assault weapons are a made up term to outlaw cosmetic features on weak hunting rifles like pistol grips or accessor rails. What the left calls an assault weapon are the most popular sporting rifles, and are a modular platform so any outlawed feature can be added/removed in 5 minutes. Their firepower is lower than most hunting rifles, most mass shootings are pistols. Places that outlawed them got near zero compliance, and they are easier to smuggle or make than most drugs.

Limiting magazine capacity can save lives. Standard capacity magazines have no practical application in self defense or hunting. It's the evil NRA and Gun Owners that block them, because they want to see their neighbors and children killed rather than give up playing weekend Rambo.

You can reload a magazine in less than a second: no one has ever closed the gap during a magazine drop, limiting magazine capacity doesn't matter. There are many self defense, sporting and hunting situations (multiple intruders, charging bear or boar, moving competitions) where 10 rounds is not enough. If they did anything good, the pro-gun crowd would at least be split: the fact that virtually none agree with the gun controllers, shows the gun controllers are ignorant, hateful bullies, or both.

The idea is to put little engravings of serial numbers on the tip of every firing pin, so that every time the gun fires a round and the casing is ejected, it has a little serial number stamped on it for tracking to the source.

The problems are: (1) the technology doesn't exist (2) if it did exist, it's easy to defeat (3) most guns aren't used by their owner, don't eject casings, and for generations would be made before this law. So this can't do anything for crime or mass murder, but is a heavy cost/annoyance to gun owners for something that can't get positive results. California judges ruled that while it's not technically possible to comply, requiring it is not a hindrance to legally exercising your gun rights.

The left demands that we close the “insane” loophole that allows people on the No Fly List to buy guns. Which begs the question, who gets on that list, and how do you get off it, if you're on it by mistake?

What we know is there's thousands of people that shouldn't be on the no fly list that are on it. Theres's no known way for them to get off it. And no mass shooter has ever been on it. Sounds like a good enough reason to ignore the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 9th amendment and assume your guilt and take away your rights, to a gun-controller.

The left's view of the world is fewer guns = safer world, so they are for things that criminalize guns, in unreasonable ways. An example of this delusion is the idea that pistols are fine, rifles are fine, but SBR/SBS's (Short Barreled Rifles, or Short Barreled Shotguns) are more dangerous than the other two, so need to be criminalized. Unless you pay extra for a tax stamp, then they're safe again.

Pistols are more concealable and thus used by most criminals. Rifles are better at longer ranges. And SBR's (or SBS's) are generally a compromise and used in virtually no crimes. But because commando's use them in War movies, the left thinks they need to be criminalized, while any nitwit criminal can mix modular parts, or use a hacksaw, and make one in 5 minutes: so all this kind of law can do is punish the innocent (otherwise law abiding), while doing absolutely nothing to deter crime or abuse.

If we spend enough of other people's money we can use technology to combat gun-violence and make a real difference. Shotspotter is a series of microphones and computers to detect where a gunshot happens and call cops to the scene of the crime quicker, at the bargain basement price of ≈$250,000/square mile (or about $60-90K/sq mi in yearly reoccurring costs).

Shotspotter isn't a gun law, it's more a boondoggle: a useless tax on the public that has no inherent return on investment. Progressives are full of good ideas on how to spend other people's money, and systems like this appeal to those who watch too much CSI, and don't understand guns, policing, technology or common sense. Response times are based on how many distractions you send cops on, and the number of false positives and false negatives and overwork mean that this system isn't helpful. So the solution is to scale it up anyways.

"Smart guns" (sometimes called safe guns) are guns that are designed to only be usable by the operator, to cure a problem that virtually doesn't exist outside of movies; having your gun taken away and used against you, or accidents. In ratios of usage to accidents, guns are much safer than cars or bathtubs.

The technology isn't there yet and probably won't be in my lifetime. A gun's prime value is instant reliability when you need it: a "Smart Gun" design undermines that and would let you die while waiting for your gun to "activate". They are advocated by those who don't understand guns, or to have another wedge issue that divides us between the gun controllers and the informed.

The left's view of the world is that they only want reasonable gun laws, and that all the laws they've passed are reasonable. It's hard to find one they think isn't reasonable.

If that's true, then there would be no examples of unreasonable outcomes. (Reasonable laws have reasonable checks against abuse). Thus any of these examples disprove the reasonableness of gun controllers and their laws. Of course there would also be some observable positive effects when enacting the laws, and consequences for eliminating them, but there's no supporting data for those outcomes. Quite the opposite.

Conclusion

If you’re trying to get more reasonable gun laws, that presumably makes us safer, and still let shooters enjoy their sport and history of guns, then explain how these laws do anything useful to stop accidental, criminal or mass shootings. If you can't, then how any of them are “reasonable”?

If a civilian can accidentally break the law by putting two legal parts together and making something illegal, then how is the law helping?

If a thug can intentionally change a gun from legal to illegal in under 5 minutes, then what's reasonable about preventing nothing?

If criminals aren't widely using these guns in crimes, and if mass murderers do more damage with other tools (bombs, trucks or box cutters), then why are we focusing on these guns?

If it's already illegal for convicted felons to buy guns, or for people to shoot/kill other people, then how are lessor crimes of the wrong decorator parts going to deter them?

If there's virtually no enforcement on background checks, and smuggling of drugs, people and guns is already prevalent in the criminal community (easier access), then why have more restrictions/delays on legal owners?

If the gun controllers don't know basic operation or parts or functions, then how can they create something reasonable from the position of ignorance?

If they have to lie and use every rare mass shooting to appeal to emotion, and try to pass new controls that wouldn't have prevented the tragedy, then where is the reason in reasonable?

If the left's greatest power is the ignorance of their constituents on what these laws actually are/do, and their greatest weakness is an informed voter, then doesn't that say something about the laws?

Thus, none of these laws are “reasonable”, as they've done nothing to stop any criminal from doing any of this, you’re just punishing law abiding folks for doing what cops and criminals already can. It’s not reasonable to punish the innocent, and do nothing to stop criminals. All these laws can do it teach informed citizens contempt for the law and our legislators, and gun owners to feel like they're a persecuted minority.

Show me a reasonable gun control law (or legislator), and I'll certainly consider it. But so far, the vast majority of gun laws are insults to the intelligence of anyone who knows the basics of guns, the law, or human nature: fortunately for them, gun-controllers rarely have basic knowledge of any of those. Licensing is where the government takes away your rights and leases them back to you for a free. That’s what these laws do to intentionally harass gun owners. Along with persecute some legal gun owners (collectors and sport shooters), and turns them into felons for doing something as evil as not knowing that you can’t put a vertical brace on what is technically a pistol, or hold it to your shoulder, and you must learn to take your guns apart (or order parts) in the correct order as doing it incorrectly makes you a felon.

Reasonable gun-control is an oxymoron: it begs the question, which is a fallacy that assumes guilt/success as the premise. I ask, "why do you think a gun prohibition will work better than drugs, alcohol or the prohibition on murder?

So irrational hopolophobics (gun phobics) aren't informed, don't accept corrections, and use the same fear-based reasoning that causes arachnophobics to scream like a little-girl and feint at the site of spiders: it's all fear-based reasoning, as proven by:

they shut down reasonable discourse, then get mad that the other side mocks them with Memes, because every Discussion with a Gun-Controller is likely to go in circles: you're arguing with hypocrites and impassioned fools.

Of course the reasonable know that laws can turn regular people into felons, but they can’t turn felons into regular people.

The question I ask is, "Do you think career politicians really don't know anything about guns or how to get laws passed -- or that they know better, and will stand on the graves of our children to get votes/money/power?" I suspect they aren't as dumb as they act, and they know better -- but they know that if they pass effective security improvements, then their best attention and campaign issue evaporates. Since they know this wouldn't be popular, they blame the other side for exactly what they're doing (commit the Big Lie™).
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